There was never a man as irritating as Winkelberg. He was an encyclopedia
of misfortune. Everything which can happen to a man had happened to him.
He had lost his family, his money and his health. He was, in short, a man
completely broken--tall, thin, with a cadaverous face, out of which shone
two huge, lusterless eyes. He walked with an angular crawl that reminded
one of the emaciated flies one sees at the beginning of winter dragging
themselves perversely along as if struggling across an illimitable expanse
of flypaper.
It was one of Winkelberg's worst habits to appear at unexpected moments.
But perhaps any appearances poor Winkelberg might have made would have had
this irritating quality of unexpectedness. One was never looking forward
to Winkelberg, and thus the sight of his wan, determined smile, his
lusterless eyes and his tenacious crawl was invariably an uncomfortable
surprise.
* * * * *
I will be frank. It was Winkelberg's misfortune which first attracted me.
I listened to his story avidly. He talked in slow words and there was
intelligence in the man. He was able to perceive himself not only as a
pain-racked, starving human, but he glimpsed with his large, tired eyes
his relation to things outside himself. I remember he said, and without
emotion: "There is nobody to blame. Not even myself. And if I cannot blame
myself how can I blame the world? The city is like that. I am no good. I
am done. Something worn out and useless. People try to take care of the
useless ones and they would like to. There are institutions. I was kicked
out of two of them. They said I was a faker. Somehow I don't appeal to
charitably inclined people."
Later I understood why. It was because of the man's smile--a feeble,
tenacious grimace that seemed to be offering a sardonic reproof. It could
never have been mistaken for a courageous smile. The secret of its
aggravating quality was this: In it Winkelberg accused himself of his
uselessness, his feebleness, his poverty. It was as if he were regarding
himself continually through the annoyed eyes of others and addressing
himself with the words of others: "You, Winkelberg, get out of here.
You're a nuisance. You make me uncomfortable because you're poor and
diseased and full of gloom. Get out. I don't want you around. Why the
devil don't you die?"
And the aggravating thing was that people looked at Winkelberg's smile as
into a mirror. They saw in it a reflection of their own attitude toward
the man. They felt that Winkelberg understood what they thought of him.
And they didn't like that. They didn't like to feel that Winkelberg was
aware that deep inside their minds they were always asking: "Why doesn't
this Winkelberg die and have it over with?" Because that made them out as
cruel, heartless people, not much different in their attitude toward their
fellow men from predatory animals in their attitude toward fellow
predatory animals. And somehow, although they really felt that way toward
Winkelberg, they preferred not to believe it. But Winkelberg's smile was a
mirror which would not let them escape this truth. And eventually
Winkelberg's smile became for them one of those curious mirrors which
exaggerate images grotesquely. Charitably inclined people, as well as all
other kinds of inclined people, prefer their Winkelbergs more egoistic.
They prefer that unfortunate ones be engrossed in their misfortunes and
not go around wearing sardonic, philosophical smiles.
* * * * *
Winkelberg dragged along for a year. He was past fifty. Each time I saw
him I was certain I would never see him again. I was certain he would
die--drop dead while crawling across his flypaper. But he would appear. I
would pretend to be vastly busy. He would sit and wait. He never asked
alms. I would have been relieved if he had. Instead he sat and smiled, and
his smile said: "You are afraid I am going to ask you for money. Don't
worry. I won't ask you for money. I won't bother you at all. Yes, I agree
with you, I ought to be dead. It would be better for everybody."
We would talk little. He would throw out a hint now and then that perhaps
I could use some of his misfortunes for material. For instance, the time
his two children had been burned to death. Or the time he had fallen off
the street car while in a sick daze and injured his spine for life, and
how he had settled with the street car company for $500 and how he had
been robbed on the way to the bank with the money two weeks later.
I refused consistently this offer of "material." This offended Winkelberg.
He would shake his head and then he would nod his head understandingly and
his smile would say:
"Yes, yes. I understand. You don't want to get involved with me. Because
you don't want me to have any more claims on your sympathy than I've got.
I'm sorry."
Toward the end Winkelberg's visits grew more frequent. And he became
suddenly garrulous. He wished to discuss things. The city. The various
institutions. Politics. Art. This phase of Winkelberg was the most
unbearable. He was willing to admit himself a social outcast. He was
reconciled to the fact that he would starve to death and that everybody
who had ever seen him would feel it had been a good thing that he had
finally died. But this final plea came from him. He wanted nothing except
to talk and hear words in order to relieve the loneliness of his days. He
would like abstract discussions that had nothing to do with Winkelberg and
the Winkelberg misfortunes. His smile now said: "I am useless, worn out
and better off dead. But never mind me. My mind is still alive. It still
thinks. I wish it didn't. I wish it crawled around like my body. But
seeing that it does, talk to me as if it were a mind belonging to somebody
else and not to the insufferable Winkelberg."
I grew suspicious finally. I began to think there was something vitally
spurious about this whole Winkelberg business. And I said to myself: "The
man's a downright fake. If anybody were as pathetic and impossible and
useless as this Winkelberg is he would shoot himself. Winkelberg doesn't
shoot himself. So he becomes illogical. Unreal."
* * * * *
A woman I know belongs to the type that becomes charitable around
Christmas time. She makes a glowing pretense of aiding the poor. As a
matter of fact, she really does aid them, although she regards the poor as
a sort of social and spiritual asset. They afford her the double
opportunity of appearing in the eyes of her neighbors as a magnanimous
soul and of doing something which reflects great credit upon her
character. But, anyway, she "does good," and we'll let it go at that.
I told this woman about Winkelberg. I became poignant and moving on the
subject of Winkelberg's misfortunes, his trials, sufferings and, above
all, his Spartan stoicism. It pleased me to do this. I felt that I was
making some amends and that the thing reflected credit upon my character.
So she went to the room on the South Side where Winkelberg sleeps. And
they told her there that Winkelberg was dead. He had died last week. She
was upset when she told me about it. She had come too late. She might have
saved him.
It was a curious thing--but when she told me that Winkelberg was dead I
felt combatively that it was untrue. And now since I know certainly that
Winkelberg is dead and buried I have developed a curious state of mind. I
look up from my desk every once in a while expecting to see him. In the
streets I sometimes find myself actually thinking: "I'll bump into him
when I turn the corner."
I have managed to discover the secret of this feeling. It is Winkelberg's
smile. Winkelberg's smile was the interpretation of the world's attitude
toward him, including my own. And thus whenever his name comes to mind his
smile appears as if it were the thought in my head. And in Winkelberg's
smile I hear myself saying: "He is better off dead."